testing mobile on local network

Question

I have run into a difficult situation.

I do not want to do my development based on an emulator, so I want to be able to have my phone (Android), to connect to my local PC to make sure what I am developing comes out the way I want it to.

Issue #1 - I need to be able to connect to my network, not internet, I can't have my PC internet facing, this limits me from opening my PC to the internet.

Issue #2 - No WiFi allowed at my work, security issues.

Issue #3 - I can't publish this to a internet facing site, since the procedure to get it to one, take a few days each publish and will put my development to a crawl.

What I'm looking for, is a way to get my phone to connect to my local PC, maybe via USB/Bluetooth but have access to my local IIS, does anyone have any idea how to accomplish this?

Answer 1

Can't you just use an Android emulator?

Answer 2

Any hack you use is going to take your environment away from the "reality" you seek.

I would really encourage you to ask your employer to give you the proper means to do your duties. For instance:

• Getting you a cheap VPS on the Internet you can push updates to yourself
• Setting up an encrypted AP separated from the rest of the company network.

Those two options are extremely cheap and would let you do what you need.

Answer 3

This is a generic problem that most mobile developers face, especially when there are big server interactions and I am afraid, in this case, there are no perfect answers. There are only workarounds.

I can see that you have tried most of the workarounds. I will suggest one more.

If your plan is to test client side code / UI, then mock up your server on any cloud based server ( eg : google app engine / amazon ec2) and get you device to access server code over the cloud.

Let me know if this approach works.